Richardson Bay becoming parking lot for vessels

Boats in Richardson Bay, seen on Thursday, are anchored off the shore of a marina in Sausalito. City officials say that more boats are turning up in Richardson Bay as people drop anchor or leave derelict boats behind.

Richardson Bay has become something of a parking lot — and dumping ground — for boats from around the region in recent months, according to the agency that monitors activity on the Southern Marin body of water.

Now officials have set out to verify ownership and registration to determine just who is on the bay.

A survey done earlier this year had 205 boats parked in the bay, compared with 159 counted in 2012 — a 29 percent increase. While many are in very good condition, more than half are in fair to poor, or worse condition. The agency typically removed about 50 derelict vessels a year, but that has jumped to about 70 annually over the last four years.

"Richardson's Bay continues to be a convenient place to bring and store vessels of varying conditions," concludes a report by the Richardson's Bay Regional Agency.

A likely reason: "Keeping a boat isn't cheap," said Ben Berto, clerk of the agency.

Some theorize people drop anchor to avoid paying docking and marina fees, which are climbing throughout the Bay Area.

"There has been an increase in the number of boats on Richardson's Bay because of the recession and people being forced out of other alternatives, including other docking areas around the bay," said Jonathan Leone, Sausalito city councilman who has sat on the agency board. Anchoring in the bay is perfectly legal, as long as the boat does not linger for more than 72 hours and has a permit from the agency. But many of the boats are not registered. Starting in June the agency launched a program to put courtesy notices on every vessel without current registration or documentation in the bay.

"It was a blustery couple of days, but well worth it to get the word out," said Berto, who plied the waters with Bill Price, harbor administrator for the agency, to get to each vessel.

With more than 200 vessels currently anchored in the bay, Berto said it is important to have as many boats as possible registered before winter storms arrive.

"It becomes a problem when the first storm comes down the bay and we get a dozen of so of these boats on the rocks," Price said.

Vessels that break loose of anchors during storms can cause damage to other boats or property along the shorelines or end up releasing hazardous chemicals, such as oil, if they break on rocks.

The bay also has been used as a place to abandon boats.

"Some of the boats are just dumped in the bay," Berto said. "You can see the algae and moss growing. They haven't been moved for years."

Since 2010, the agency has disposed of more than 300 such vessels.

Price said the agency sees a lot of boats built in the 1970s, when there was a boom in water recreation. But the boats are now dated and often cannot be sold. The owners, unwilling to pay rent for storage, or dispose of them properly, bring them to Richardson Bay, drop anchor and slip away. It is often difficult to find the owners of the vessels, he added.

The agency gets about $180,000 annually in state money to remove derelict boats from the bay, but it does not have the staff to do enforcement beyond the recent documentation program. Sheriff's deputies and Sausalito police, however, have issued some citations for lack of registration.

"Our main goal now is to know who the current owners are of all these boats," Berto said.